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Comment by aschla | Hacker News Reader

Kayak fished the St. Croix river last year, on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin, for smallmouth bass. Crystal clear water. Floated over several huge sturgeon, 4-6 feet long. The way they look, it feels like coming across a dinosaur. Thankfully they're bottom feeders.

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Acipenser transmontanus are harmless sucker mouth fish, and lived in the local rivers long before our towns were even an idea.

They are usually strictly catch and release, but in a kayak could probably pull you a great distance. They are deceptively strong for their size, and a big part of local conservation efforts.

400 years is plausible, as they do live a long time when left alone. =3

> lived in the local rivers long before our towns were even an idea

To be fair, the towns you're talking about are barely 200-300 years or so I presume? Most other towns in the world are probably older than those towns, and maybe even the fish if it's just 400 years ago :)

To be fair the towns a North American might be talking about could easily date to 400 to 600 years ago at least - with signs of human occupation in the Great Lakes area going back 10-12,000 years before present, a good deal on the present lake floors.

Where I live on the West Coast any towns older than a couple hundred years are long gone, the people were killed or evicted from their land long ago. The existing towns are all new.

Towns are where people live, buildings come and go - Manitoulin Island, within the Great Lakes, still has the Wiikwemkoong First Nation unceded and occupied land, near to which French Jesuits set up a mission in 1648.

Probably not: you grossly underestimate the amount of urban growth and development worldwide since the industrial revolution.

My fishing story - as a young teen, I "caught" a sturgeon on the Ottawa River (just outside of Pembroke) in a 12' aluminum boat. This was in an area where we'd typically expect to catch bass and northern pike - our fishing net was maybe the size of a large diner plate, and reeling the fish in might take a minute or two.

My father was in the boat with me. After hooking the fish, it took about 20 minutes before the fish was close enough that we could see it from the boat, and identified it as a sturgeon - it was the only time I'd ever caught one. This one was so much bigger than anything I'd caught before. I was using one of those jointed Rapala lures, and it had hooked the dorsal fin. I can confirm the sturgeon could definitely pull the two of us, and the boat, upstream - but not a great distance - just enough to move the boat around.

After about 25 minutes, my line snapped (it may have been 12 lbs test). We didn't really have a way of getting it in the boat in any case, and we would have released it anyway. This was probably the late 80s/early 90s - so nothing captured on a phone camera - it just lives on in my Dad's & my memories...

The local tagged 80 year olds were caught so many times over the years they are surprisingly mellow about the inconvenience once landed in the shallows. Still, takes guts to attempt that in a dingy, as "You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat" (Jaws, 1975). lol =3

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